


i would do anything for you

by moonlitserenades



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Love, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:15:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27444004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlitserenades/pseuds/moonlitserenades
Summary: "You're not gonna do anything stupid, though, right?""'Course not," he says. And then he goes to Caleb Covington's club.
Relationships: Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 159





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I just love them, okay?

One of the more awesome things about being a ghost is that you can think of a place and end up there. You can even think of a person, and poof straight to wherever they are. This, Alex assumes, is how Willie had found him before. 

Anyway, it’s how he goes about trying to find _him_ , in the aftermath of their successful performance at the Orpheum, and the delirious joy of realizing that Julie had rescued them all from eternal oblivion. 

There’s the requisite pull into blackness, as though he’s being sucked into a vacuum (which, maybe he is, kind of. He has no idea how this stuff works.), but then it’s like an electric shock travels through his entire body. There’s a pulse of sharp pain, and Alex finds himself stumbling and crashing to the ground, back in the studio where he’d started. 

He’d left Julie still sitting at the piano, and she half-rises when she sees him, eyes wide and startled. “Are you okay?!” 

“I think so.” He gets up, wincing. His palms sting where he’s scraped them on the ground, which...absolutely should not be happening. “Uh, I was...trying to visit a friend.”

She crosses to him, fussing needlessly with his rumpled clothes in an obvious attempt to find some way of being helpful. “Has this ever happened to you before?”

“No.” Frantic, he inspects his palms, his wrists where Caleb’s stamp had been. “It was almost like those jolts we were getting, sort of, but those haven’t happened in days. And I don’t feel weird anymore, really, so I don’t think it’s that.” It’s too similar, though; that _he_ is technically safe doesn’t actually make him feel any better. 

“Do you have any idea what it might be?”

“I don’t know.” He sighs, scrubbing one hand through his hair. “I’m really worried that...that guy who stamped us…” (because somewhere along the line they’d all sort of collectively decided that using Caleb Covington’s name was to be avoided at basically all costs, like by mentioning him they’d somehow summon him) “...might’ve done something to my friend.” That he could be _literally_ dead and still get stomachaches and phantom palpitations from anxiety seems entirely unfair, but he’s almost used to it at this point. 

“Maybe we can look for him,” she offers. “I can come with, if you want.” 

“No,” he blurts. “I don’t want him to even see you. I’m not sure if he can do anything to you, but I’m not willing to risk it.” 

She folds her arms, brow creasing with worry. “Well, _I_ don’t like the idea of you going looking for him by yourself. What if he goes after you again?” 

“I won’t go to him,” he says quickly. “I promise.” 

It’s a lie, and if the way she narrows her eyes at him is any indication, not a particularly convincing one.

“I won’t go to him alone,” he amends, which is...more likely to be true, at least. “And I’ll try other places first.” 

“Promise me.” She holds out her pinky, expression deadly serious. He crooks his around it, grinning a little. 

“Promise.”

“And check back in once in a while,” she adds, finger still linked to his, “so I know you’re okay.”

“I will.” He pulls his hand free, but then gives in to the temptation to give her a hug. She squeezes him tight, then pulls back to survey him. 

“Be careful.” 

He nods. Then, drawing a deep breath, he closes his eyes again, imagining the exact street that he and Willie had first collided. There’s a moment of fear that there _is_ something wrong with him, that he won’t get where he’s trying to go, but then he opens his eyes and he’s on the sidewalk as dusk falls around him. It’s deserted enough that he can tell right away that Willie’s not here, but he spends about fifteen minutes jogging around and looking for him. No luck, though. 

He tries the museum, then a skate park he’s never actually been to but that he knows Willie likes. Then, getting increasingly desperate, a few restaurants or small shops he’s heard Willie mention before.

Nothing. 

It’s definitely night now, so he pops back to Julie’s for a second so that she won’t worry, even though his own panic is beginning to reach critical levels. He must look awful, because she throws her arms around him again, catching Luke and Reggie’s attention. They both stand up from noodling around with their instruments, expressions uncertain. “Julie told us you were looking for Willie,” Luke says quietly. “Do you want us to come with?” 

“Uh, no, it’s--it’s okay,” he manages. 

“You’re not gonna do anything stupid though, right?” 

He’d make some sort of pithy quip, normally, about Reggie being the one to ask that, of all people, but there’s a static whine of anxiety in the back of his mind that’s preventing him from coming up with anything.

“‘Course not,” he says, and then he goes to Caleb Covington’s club.

Or, to be fair, he goes to some random parking lot a few blocks away from Caleb Covington’s club, because he has no interest in being spotted until it’s absolutely necessary, and maybe it’s dumb to think he has any chance of not being seen, but he clings to the hope of that anyway. 

He manages to get all the way up to the rear entrance without any indication of impending doom, but it’s a solid door, and there are no windows to peek through back here. He’s bracing himself to burst inside when he hears, faintly,

“Don’t.” 

Startled, he pulls his hand away, whipping his head around to look for the source of the sound. No one’s around, though. “...hello?” he tries, in a whisper. His voice cracks a little.

“You can’t come in here. Please.” 

That voice…

“Willie?!” He moves away from the door, trying to close in on where the words are coming from, but it’s like they’re drifting in on the wind.

“Hey, hot dog.” There’s a little mournful amusement in the greeting, but it doesn’t decrease Alex’s worry at all. 

“Where are you? What’s going on?”

“That’s super complicated, actually,” Willie says, with a little, humorless laugh. 

“Are you...okay?”

There’s such a long silence that Alex begins to wonder if maybe he’d hallucinated the entire exchange. But just as he’s about to try his luck with the door again, Willie speaks. “I don’t really have, like, control over my body anymore?” 

“What?!” His voice ratchets up in volume and pitch, and Willie’s voice shushes him frantically, coinciding almost perfectly with a sudden gust of wind.

“You can _not_ let Caleb see you,” he hisses. “He’ll take your body like he took mine, and I can’t--I _won’t_ let that happen.” 

“What--what d’you mean he took your body?”

“Fine print of the soul stamp,” he says wryly. “But I’m working on it, and I mean...it’s better than oblivion, right?” 

There’s a vicious lump clogging Alex’s throat. “How do I help?”

“You stay safe,” Willie murmurs. “Seriously. Please. I’m working on it, but...if something happens to you, there’s no point.”

“Can--can I still come and talk to you here?” 

“I...I should say no.” He sighs. “I’m gonna try to visit you somehow, but it’s way harder to move yourself when you’re basically just a disembodied consciousness. Give me like, a week, okay?” 

He doesn’t want to. He wants to stay here, wants to go bursting into that club and demand that Caleb give him his friend back. But more than that, he doesn’t want to make things worse than they already are. “A week,” he says. “And if I don’t hear from you, I’m gonna check back here.” 

“That’s fair.” There’s a hint of a smile in Willie’s voice. “Stay safe out there, Alex.”

He nods, barely managing to bite back a useless, too late _you too._ “I’ll see you soon.”

And, before he can talk himself out of it, he goes home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (He doesn’t realize that Julie and the boys have gotten home. Doesn’t notice them come in, doesn’t feel them staring. Doesn’t hear Reggie’s murmured _holy crap,_ nor the thud of Luke kicking him in the shin and pointedly shushing him. Doesn’t know that Julie quickly drags them off back to her house again to give him some privacy.) 
> 
> Or: Alex writes a song. Everything changes.
> 
> Again.

The ensuing week is one of the most difficult of Alex’s life. (Lives? Afterlife? Whatever, it’s _hard,_ okay?) Time seems to slow to a crawl; he throws himself into rehearsing with a fervor that leaves even Luke, who regularly used to forget to eat and sleep in favor of making music even when they actually needed both of those things to survive, shooting him worried looks when he thinks Alex can’t see. Both Luke and Reggie seem eager to try to keep his mind off of things, if the way they start suggesting increasingly unlikely trips is any indication. 

(“Hey, what d’you think would happen if we tried to poof to like Hawaii or something?”) 

(The answer, it turns out, is nothing; they can’t teleport themselves to a place they’ve never been, even when they try studying pictures of specific locations using Julie’s dad’s laptop. Which isn’t surprising, but it’s at least a little amusing, particularly because of how melodramatically Reggie pouts after.) 

He lets himself be talked into at least a half-dozen “basketball games,” and more meandering walks through the streets of LA to see what types of trouble they can invisibly stir up. (He finds himself straining to hear any hint of Willie’s voice on every breeze, startling anytime he sees someone on a skateboard, or passes a person with long, dark hair.) 

He writes, too, although he keeps that to himself. He’s always been shy about his lyrics. He’s the _drummer_ , and there’s a reason he’s not the frontman. His stuff’s nowhere near as good as Luke’s or Julie’s, and there’s no point in pretending it is. But...it helps, kind of, on the neverending nights when there’s nothing to do but count the minutes and wonder if there’s any point in getting his hopes up. 

(Too late.)

On the Friday that marks one week, Alex is an absolute mess. When Julie comes out to the garage to say goodbye to them before she heads off to school, she takes one look at him and asks, “Do you want me to stay home? I can pretend I’m sick.” 

“Or maybe we could come to school with you?” Luke asks, all puppydog eyes, looking up at her with a hopeful little pout. 

She rolls her eyes at him, but she’s grinning. When she responds, it’s Alex she addresses. “Do you want to? I trust _you_ not to act like an idiot all day, at least.” 

He manages to smile back at her, with effort. “Thanks, but I probably shouldn’t. Just in case he’s, like...limited on where he can go, y’know? But you guys go.” 

“Are you sure you don’t want us to hang out with you?” Reggie offers. He’s frowning, studying Alex closely. “You probably shouldn’t be, like, by yourself.” 

“No, really.” He clears his throat. “I...love you guys, but I think I want to be alone for a while.” 

“Ohhh. Got it,” Reggie says, nodding sagely. 

“If you change your mind, pop over to school though, okay? You can laugh at us while we all mess up our combinations in dance later.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He keeps the smile firmly locked in place. “Thanks Jules.” 

“Yeah, of course.” She’s wrapping and unwrapping a loose thread at the hem of her shirt around her finger, looking entirely unhappy about the idea of leaving. “We’ll see you later.”

They exchange a look, then, as one, move forward to wrap him in a huge group hug. Luke actually manages to lift him off his feet a little, and he laughs in spite of himself. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You love us, you even said so,” Reggie crows, craning his neck so that he can kiss Alex on the forehead. 

“I regret that immediately,” he mutters, which is so obviously a lie that no one acknowledges it. “Anyway, go away, you’re going to be late again.” 

“Noooo, we can’t disappoint Ray!” 

Alex thinks maybe it’s to all of their credit that no one points out that Ray is 1) not Reggie’s dad; and 2) completely unaware of exactly how present in his daughter’s life her bandmates actually are.

He waves them off with mingled relief and sadness, then drops down onto Julie’s piano bench. He doesn’t play, really, but there’s been a melody lingering in the back of his head for some of the lyrics he’d written a few nights ago, the ones he’s repeated over and over again to himself like a mantra until they’d imprinted themselves onto his brain. He plucks away at the keys until he manages to find the ones that match; he’s watched Luke often enough over the last, oh, apparently almost thirty freaking years to be able to scribble down at least a fair approximation of the right notes and rhythms. The sun climbs in the sky, casting the garage in a golden glow, and still he works: adding chords. Erasing them. Changing them and trying again. Fixing a spot in the melody he hadn’t even realized was bugging him until the solution hits. 

(He doesn’t realize that Julie and the boys have gotten home. Doesn’t notice them come in, doesn’t feel them staring. Doesn’t hear Reggie’s murmured _holy crap,_ nor the thud of Luke kicking him in the shin and pointedly shushing him. Doesn’t know that Julie quickly drags them off back to her house again to give him some privacy.) 

Finally, as the sun begins to set, he thinks he might actually be happy with it. He looks down at the pages spread out across the top of the piano with something akin to pride, then draws a deep breath and starts to play, at last, from the beginning. 

He loses himself in it entirely, and when the last notes hang in the air, he comes back to himself and realizes, startled, that he’s crying. 

“That was pretty good, hot dog.”

Alex jumps so hard he almost falls off the bench, twisting toward the sound so fast he wrenches his spine. Willie’s standing with his shoulders braced against the closed garage door, arms folded like he’s just lounging. Like it isn’t a miracle that Alex is able to look over and see him there, after days of nothing, with perfect clarity. There’s a small smile curving his lips, and his eyelashes are a little wet. 

“Okay,” he says, his voice trembling. “If I’m having a hallucination right now I want it known that I am _not_ okay with that.”

“You’re not.” Willie’s smile widens even as his lips tremble. He pushes away from the door to walk closer, but Alex is already standing and walking toward him, so they meet in the middle. They sort of...crash into a hug, as if neither one of them is willing to stop walking in case he’ll phase straight through. Alex brings his arms up to wrap around Willie once he realizes he can, fisting his hands in the back of his denim jacket in an echo of what he’d done before the performance at the Orpheum. A dry sob shakes Willie’s shoulders and he clutches at Alex like a lifeline, breathing tremulously. 

“You’re really here,” Alex manages, muffled because he hasn’t quite managed to lift his face up from where it’s buried in the crook of Willie’s shoulder. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” he says. He’s practically humming with tension, but the longer Alex holds him, the more that begins to melt away until he’s practically slumped in his arms. “I think...I think it was you.” 

“Me?” He’s startled enough by this to pull back, only just so that he can look Willie in the eye. “How?”

“Maybe we should sit.”

“Oh. Yeah, uh. Of course.” He lets go, leading the way over to the couch. Willie flops down next to him, only the barest hint of space between them. 

“Okay so. After you left last week, I was already feeling, like, a little stronger. Not enough to really do anything or go anywhere. And I thought it was just my mind tricking me because I was so relieved that you were okay, but every time I thought about I had to find a way to get to you, things got a little better. By a few days ago I was sort of a shadow of myself, and I could phase in and out of it; I don’t think Caleb realized, because I was careful to only try it when he was busy with something else. 

“But even this morning, I didn’t look like this, and I definitely couldn’t go anywhere I couldn’t walk to.”

“What do you think happened?” Alex is breathless; somehow, now they’re pressed together shoulder to thigh.

“You might not believe me.”

“I’m in a ghost band with a lifer who’s one of my best friends now.” 

“...good point.” He laughs a little, ducking his head. A strand of hair falls in front of his eyes, and Alex instinctively reaches out to brush it back for him, the contact zinging through him like so much electricity. He can feel the way Willie’s breath stutters, and the way he presses just slightly into Alex’s touch. “I,” he manages. (Alex’s eyes drop to his lips, and then drift slowly back up to his eyes.) “I think it was your song. Because...because I’ve been trying to get to you all day, and the only time I was able to do it was right as you started to play.” 

“I wrote it for you,” Alex murmurs, like a confession. Somewhere along the line, they’ve turned so that they’re facing each other, legs tangled together where they dangle off the couch. He tilts forward at the same time that Willie does, so that their foreheads touch, and for a while, they just sit there, breathing the same air. 

They’ll never be entirely sure which of them shifts. Maybe they move in perfect unison. Either way, sitting there wrapped up in each other on the ancient leather couch that has changed Alex’s life dozens of times, he and Willie finally, _finally_ kiss.


End file.
